Sweet and Deadly aka Dead Dog

“I’m listening,” Catherine said sharply. She had an ominous feeling she was about to hear yet another secret.

“She did,” Leila hissed dramatically.

“Perform abortions?”

“Yeah, sure,” Leila whispered. “Listen, I know you won’t tell on me…”

Everyone certainly seems to be sure of that, Catherine thought fleetingly.

“…but she ‘did’ me. It’s like Mr. Sims says, how could I just tell my parents I was going to be out of town for two days?”

“When was this?”

“Five months ago.”

After Father died, Catherine realized with relief. Leona just kept some of the equipment when Jerry bought the rest. At least it wasn’t while her Father was alive.

“I went up to Memphis and asked, but it was awful expensive.”

“Leona was cheap?”

“Oh, yeah, compared to Memphis. But I think she charged more later. I was one of her first.”

Catherine felt sick.

“I’m sorry, Leila.” It was all she knew to say.

“Oh, well.” Leila waved a polished hand to dismiss her former predicament. “What I’m scared of,” she went on urgently, “is the sheriff will tell, if he finds out. My parents, you know. I mean, what if Miss Gaites kept records?”

“Come on, Leila,” Catherine said tartly. “She would hardly have a receipt file!”

Leila pondered that.

“I guess you’re right,” she said. “I mean, she was breaking the law. So she probably wouldn’t have written anything down. And you had to pay her cash.”

Catherine imagined Leila trying to write a check for Leona’s services and winced.

Leila, now that her immediate fear was banished, looked brighter by the second. She straightened her shoulders, leaned back in her chair, and gave her pink fingernails a once-over. Catherine was glancing at her notes surreptitiously, longing to return to something normal and humdrum, when the girl began to frown.

“How did you know about Tom’s fiancee?” Leila asked abruptly.

“What?” Catherine made herself pay attention.

“Tom,” Leila prompted. “When did he tell you?”

“That they broke up?” Catherine made an effort to remember. “I guess it was yesterday.”

“He over at your place?” asked Leila, with badly feigned indifference.

“Oh,” Catherine said, enlightened. “No, I went over to his house” (that just made it worse, she saw instantly) “and he happened to mention it in the course of the conversation.”

And I was trying to do her a good turn, Catherine reflected gloomily, as Leila shot her a look and rose from her chair. Leila returned to her filing, back pointedly stiff, slamming home the drawers of the cabinets with all her strength.

It seemed a good time to go to lunch.

9

CATHERINE SPENT THE afternoon dodging conversations. She didn’t want to hear any more secrets or opinions.

The entire staff was aware of her penchant for long silences, and when she gave minimal answers to direct questions she couldn’t avoid, they got the point.

Finally Catherine caught up with her work. She had deposited with Jewel everything urgent she had pending, with the nagging exception of the Barnes’s grandchild’s birthday-party piece.

She had seen a couple of stories by Randall on the “set” spike when she carried her own things back. In addition to turning out editorials, Randall had to report the occasional event, when Catherine and Tom were too busy to cover it. The Gazette simply couldn’t afford another reporter, even though another pair of hands at a typewriter would often have been welcome, particularly in the fall when high school sports started up.

Catherine remembered the time she had had to cover a basketball game, during the hiatus between Tom’s predecessor’s departure and Tom’s arrival. It had been a fiasco, and she shuddered to recall it, even months later.

Mrs. Weilenmann, the head librarian, came in to give Catherine the schedule for the next month’s special library programs. Catherine thanked her wholeheartedly for the neatly typed listing. (All too often, people brought in scrawls that Catherine had to type up to decipher.) In a gush of gratitude, she promised to place it prominently in the next issue, with a border around it.

“Catherine,” the tall middle-aged woman said slowly, after she had gathered up her paraphernalia to leave, “I’m worried about you and your situation.”

Catherine stared blankly at Mrs. Weilenmann’s toffee-colored face. Mrs. Weilenmann was intelligent, ugly, and charming; and Catherine had grown fond of her. But they had never had a really personal conversation.

“It occurred to me this morning,” Mrs. Weilenmann said hesitantly, “when I was getting the books out of the bookdrop (and someone’s hit it again; why can’t people control their cars?)-well, it occurred to me that you are a little isolated now.”

Catherine couldn’t think of anything to say, so she waited.

“Not-socially; I don’t know about that. But geographically.”

“Oh?” murmured Catherine, mystified.

“Well, dear, I don’t mean to make you nervous,” Mrs. Weilenmann said in her peculiarly formal diction, “but the Drummonds are gone, aren’t they? Having a great time, I hear, but they won’t be back for a couple of weeks. And the library is closed at night, in the summer, after six on weekdays; and for most of the weekend. So to one side of you and across from you, there’s no one. And on the other side of you, the street. But no one can see your yard from the street, because of the hedge. And behind you, there’s the hedge again, so the other reporter (he still rents from you, doesn’t he?) can’t see your back yard. And being single, I imagine Mr. Mascalco isn’t there often. At night.”

Catherine gathered her hair up in a bundle and held it on top of her head.

“I don’t mean to frighten you. I guess this sounds like I’m trying to. Really, I think I shouldn’t have said anything. But I hate to think of you alone in your house at night. Now I’m sorry I started this,” she finished in a distressed rush.

“What all this was leading up to (now that I’ve made a fool of myself by scaring you out of your wits) is that if you would like to stay with me, until this incident gets cleared up, I would love to have you.”

And in Lowfield that was, though Catherine could never compliment her for it, a remarkably brave offer from a black woman to a white woman. Not only was Mrs. Weilenmann risking a shocked refusal, but, if Catherine accepted, Mrs. Weilenmann would be extremely cramped in her rented crackerbox of a house-which was situated, like Bethesda Weilenmann, in a gray area between the black and white parts of town.

“It sure is kind of you to offer,” Catherine said slowly. “I really appreciate it. But I think I won’t take you up on that, unless I get scared.” That seemed inadequate, and Catherine groped around for another way to explain.

“You like being on your own,” Mrs. Weilenmann said unexpectedly and accurately. “I can understand; I do too. It isn’t easy for me to be ‘company’ even overnight. I like to leave and go back to my own place, such as it is.” Her face turned up in a smile. “So I do understand. But if you reconsider, I have a cot I can set up, and it would be no trouble at all. You’re a brave young woman, Catherine. And you’re not stupid, not stupid at all.”

Catherine thought sadly that Mrs. Weilenmann must have been very disappointed in many people, to be so firm in praising these paltry recommendations.

“Thanks for your good opinion,” Catherine said, and gave Mrs. Weilenmann one of her own rare smiles.

“I’ll see you, then,” Mrs. Weilenmann said briskly, and headed back to her library.